


Boom

by LittleSweetCheeks



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, Hallucinations, Investigation, Life altering event, Team as Family, mental break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 05:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15965780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSweetCheeks/pseuds/LittleSweetCheeks
Summary: No one saw the spark coming, so the boom...it rocked their world.





	1. Garcia

_Interview Date: October 28, 2011_  
Interview Location: Sixth floor conference room, FBI Building, Quantico  
Interviewer: Deborah Ray, Special Investigator

_Transcription of Interview #1 with Penelope Garcia, Technical Analyst with the BAU._

“Miss Garcia are you comfortable?”

“No.” She sighed. “I- I’m not comfortable with any of this. I wasn’t even there, I don’t know at all what good interviewing me would do.”

“Perhaps you can speak to his state of mind in the days leading up to the event?”

“I-” She sniffled. “I dunno… He seemed…normal.”

“Let’s go back to the Monday, how was he on Monday? What was your interaction with him then?”

“He was already in the office when I got in.”

“And what time was that?” Deborah cut in.

“I come in about seven?”

“Is it normal, that he’s here before you?”

Garcia nodded. “I dropped my stuff in my office and grabbed some coffee from down there.” She pointed out the window at the break area. “There were some bagels someone had brought in and they were fresh, so I made up a plate and took coffee and a bagel to him. I do that sometimes… He had files on his desk he was working on, but nothing jumps out at me that was odd. We chatted a moment and I went back to my office, everything was normal.”

“He gave no indication then that something could be wrong?”

She shook her head.

“I need you to answer out loud, Miss Garcia, for the recorder.”

“Sorry, no. Tuesday and Wednesday went much the same. We maybe didn’t banter as much as normal, but with this job…” She sighed heavily again. “Sometimes with this job it’s just _hard_ to want to be happy.”

“Was there anything different about Thursday morning?”

“He was agitated, but a case had come in so honestly none of us thought anything of it. The team left on the jet and after that my interactions with them are pretty limited. I spoke mostly to one of the others, but that’s not weird really, I can go an entire case with one of the team not calling directly, there’s no rhyme or reason to it.”

The investigator flipped to a fresh page in her notebook. “Now, I had heard you had been on the phone with the team at the time of the incident.”

“I was on speaker, yes.”

“Can you walk me through what you heard?”

“Em, ah, Agents Prentiss and Rossi were nearby that I knew, I couldn’t hear anyone else. We were narrowing parameters on the suspect pool. There were other people talking in the distance, but it was a busy station, I didn’t take any notice of it.”

“So, Agents Prentiss and Rossi were talking… Then what?”

“The background noise got louder. Prentiss, she said ‘ _Rossi_ ’ and then there was just a cacophony. There were gunshots, lots of them, and shouting. I don’t know what happened after that. I stayed on the line as long as I could bare, but none of the team ever came back and I couldn’t ever make out their voices.” She swallowed, tears in her eyes. “So, I hung up.”

Deborah watched the other woman a minute before setting down her pen. “Miss Garcia… I was warned when I was given this case that this team was exceptionally close. I thought the warning was to prepare me that you would all close ranks, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

Penelope drew a ragged breath and then nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“That’ll be all for now, Miss Garcia. Thank you. If I have more questions later, I’ll call you.”


	2. Jareau

_Interview Date: October 28, 2011_  
Interview Location: Sixth floor conference room, FBI Building, Quantico  
Interviewer: Deborah Ray, Special Investigator

_Transcription of Interview #1 with Agent Jennifer Jareau, Liaison with the BAU_

The moment the recorder clicked on, JJ spoke. “I want it to be on record that I’m not okay with this.”

“Duly noted, Agent Jareau. Now, in the week leading up to the incident, was there anything unusual about the work day or the agent in question that you noticed? Was he agitated or distracted? Were you aware of anything in his personal life that was causing an issue?”

JJ simply stared blankly at the woman a minute. “No.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really, no. The days went by like they always did, we worked the files, sometimes together in here, sometimes independently at our desks, and we went home.”

“None of you spent any social time off hours together?”

“Why would we?”

“I had heard the team was very close, I guess I assumed that meant you occasionally spent personal time together.”

“Doing?” JJ arched one manicured brow.

Deborah opened her mouth to answer and hesitated. “I believe I was the one asking the questions here, Agent.”

“You are welcome to believe whatever you like.”

The statement unnerved her, the tables were turning. She was expecting the profilers to pull that but coming from the liaison threw her. “Agent Jareau. Please elaborate.”

“Who instigated this inquiry?”

“The director.”

“Are you certain?”

“It’s fairly standard when an even like this occurs.”

“Tell me.” JJ leaned in over the table. “How many of these ‘incidents’ have you ever known to occur?”

“Agents burn out…”

“This wasn’t burnout.”

“Are you sure? Are you certain you know him well enough to put your career on the line backing him? How do you know he hadn’t been planning for a day just like that day? Biding his time until he could make the biggest impact?”

“I would give up more than my career.”

It was Deborah’s turn to raise brows. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was out front updating the reporters. We thought stating we had a break in the case would draw our unsub out, with certain personalities it seems to work. They think someone else is getting credit for their work and they’ll do something sloppy and dramatic and walk right into our trap.”

When the agent didn’t carry on right away, she prompted. “And then?”

“And then I thanked them and stepped back inside.” JJ shared down at her hands. “It was sunny out, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darker interior as I stepped through the second set of double doors. I was still outside the metal detectors. When I stepped in it was so loud, people shouting and running… It took me a second to work out what was happening. People were drawing their weapons, so I drew mine too… At first.”

“At first?”

“I was behind the front counter, I couldn’t see the threat, but I could see the rest of the team, none of them had their weapons drawn.”

“What did you notice about them?”

“They looked…stunned.”

“Stunned?”

“Yeah.” JJ went quiet again.

“Can you tell me what happened next?”

“I don’t remember.”

Deborah could see the sorrow in the Agent’s face. “How was the situation being resolved?”

“Rossi started talking, he quite literally wrote the book on negotiating so… The other two slowly shifted further away from him. Eventually they were all spread far enough apart that they could try to have a…” She caught on the next words, a sob bubbling out instead. “So they could take a shot. But he…he knew to watch their hands, they couldn’t draw their weapons. They were stuck.”

“What did you do?”

“I think I died.”

“Agent?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore. You’ll… you’ll have to just get what you need from the others.” JJ stood. “I’m… I’m sorry.” She rushed out of the room.

With a heavy sigh of her own, Deborah spoke into the empty room for the record. “It is still inconclusive whether Agent Jareau’s bullet…” She glanced at the paper. “Ballistics are inconclusive.”


	3. Prentiss

_Interview Date: October 28, 2011_  
Interview Location: Sixth floor conference room, FBI Building, Quantico  
Interviewer: Deborah Ray, Special Investigator

_Transcription of Interview #2 with Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss_

Deborah shut the door to the conference room and turned to her next guest and hesitated. The cool, unblinking stare was marginally off putting to say the least. Drawing a breath, she steeled herself and took a seat. “Agent Prentiss.”

“This is not what this situation needs.”

“And… What do you think this situation needs, Agent?”

“A little compassion. Therapy certainly and maybe gentler approach than dragging us in one by one to interrogate us.”

“This isn’t an interrogation.”

“One on one locked in a private room, asking pointed questions.”

“You’re not locked in, Agent, you’re free to go whenever you wish.”

Emily stood, collecting her bag as she made her way to the door.

“But, Agent. Perhaps what I need is some insight. I don’t have the years of intimate knowledge you do. I haven’t shared personal moments and details, shared hotel rooms and slept against one another. I’ve been all but stonewalled by the entire team and I can’t do my job well and come to a fair conclusion without your help.” She watched Prentiss consider. “Come tell me something only you can tell me.”

Prentiss turned. “Off the record?”

Deborah nodded. “Sure, it can be off the record.” She reached across the table, switching the recorder off and leaving it where the agent could see it. “Please talk to me.”

Emily shifted for several minutes by the door, weighing her options. When she spoke, she didn’t return to the table, distancing herself from everything. “He has…had…a certain reputation, but I knew better. We all did. He was…” Her voice broke. “The best. I think he was the most loyal person and that’s saying something because all of the guys on our team…They’re all pretty loyal to a fault.”

The investigator waited.

“He was funny and…smart… He would play dumb when it suited the situation but…We knew it was an act.”

“Were you close with him?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Some people might think JJ would be closer with him, they shared a lot… Or Garcia maybe because there was a little history there.”

“He had history with Analyst Garcia?”

“Not…not that kind of history, it was innocent, two friends that are very close. They got each other in some weird way. And Rossi, Rossi’s some cross between indulgent uncle and hard-ass father with all of us, he was no exception. But he and I…we had history too.” She shook her hair out of her eyes.

“Agent, when I spoke to you before, you mentioned this being your fault.”

“I should have seen the signs.”

“Do you have experience with people who have had this kind of psychological break?”

“Only through work… Sometimes the bad guys aren’t really bad guys in the traditional sense. They have monsters in their minds that are tormenting them. I always felt bad for those. I wondered how the families didn’t see it before, because surely there had to be _signs_ of what was coming. Who misses _this?”_

“And now?”

“Now I feel bad for judging them. I’m trained to see behavior, to notice things and I missed it with someone so close.”

“May I ask a question?” She waited for Prentiss to nod. “Why didn’t you try to shoot him like JJ did?”

“I knew he would be shot, by someone, it was a room filled with two dozen armed cops. If he was in there somewhere, fighting through those monsters, I didn’t want what he saw to be his friend aiming a gun at him. I didn’t want him to think he had no allies and give up completely.”

“Thank you, Agent.”

With another nod, Prentiss slipped out the door.


	4. Rossi

_Interview Date: October 29, 2011_  
Interview Location: Rossi Residence of record  
Interviewer: Deborah Ray, Special Investigator

_Transcription of Interview #1 with Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi_

Deborah waited at the kitchen table for Agent Rossi to reappear. When he did, her brows rose. “Agent Rossi, it’s ten in the morning, is that scotch?”

“When you’ve watched someone you consider _your_ son shoot four cops dead and then hold a fifth at gunpoint all while raging about something that only he can see… Then you can determine when it’s appropriate to drink.” He sank heavily into a chair. “Look, I came back to the team to learn this new family I had joined, most of them didn’t have much of any experience on what a good father was. And how can boys grow into good young men without good father figures? So, all of them became my sons, so don’t go thinking I’m more attached to him than the others.” He jabbed his finger into the wood surface to drive home his words.

She waited.

“I thank a god I am certain he doesn’t believe in every second since that moment that he’s not dead himself, but I have no idea what he will look like when we all get out the other side, because he is still part of our family, that won’t change just because the Bureau decides to cast him out with the chaff.”

“We have no plans to do that, Agent. He needs help.”

Dave eyed her. “Forgive me, but I don’t trust you.”

“I understand that. I have asked the others now, was there anything about him in the days leading up that was off or different?”

He squinted out the window as he thought. “He was muttering, mumbling, to himself a couple times. But honestly? Sometimes we have to voice our ideas into the air to work through them. I honestly didn’t think much of it.”

“Okay.” She nodded as she scribbled down notes. “Anything else?”

Dave frowned. “The day we got the case, he was tense, which was normal enough, but he was…on edge. Jumpy maybe. Once we got to the station, I guess now that I’m thinking about it, he stuck a little closer than normal.”

“Any idea why he would have done that?”

“No.” He sipped his drink. “I think that’s a question better left to him and his doctors.”

Deborah nodded. “I understand.”

“Is that all you need from me?”

“It will do.” She turned off the recorder. “Agent Rossi, have you been to see him?”

“Every day.”

“How is he doing, really?”

“Thanks to the vest he’d been wearing, the shots were survivable, though there is some concern about one that hit his lung from the side.”

“The one Agent Jareau is concerned about.”

He nodded. “They had to remove some of the lung to do the best repair, she believes it was her shot.”

“Is he aware yet?”

“Not yet. The doctors are worried if he becomes distressed or has another episode, he could injure his healing body.”

“I understand.”


	5. Morgan

_Interview Date: October 29, 2011_  
Interview Location: Group room, Sandwiches on Main  
Interviewer: Deborah Ray, Special Investigator

_Transcription of Interview #1 with Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan_

“Agent Morgan, thank you for meeting me on short notice like this. I know you’re pressed for time so can you walk me through your relationship with him?”

“We didn’t start out close, ya know? I guess our personalities seemed too different. But over the years, I guess we realized we got along better than we’d thought.”

“Can you give me an example of something? Something outside of work?”

“I restore houses in my spare time and he would come over on the weekends and help tear out walls or paint or something. We’d have pizza and a beer and just talk about life and stuff, nothing heavy.”

“So, you were friends.”

“Yeah. You know, with our jobs sometimes it’s hard to connect with other people who just get why something that seems small would be a trigger. We find friends who can get us.”

Deborah nodded and made notes. “And the week before the incident?”

“He seemed stressed out. Overtired. I don’t think he’d been sleeping.”

“None of the others so far noticed anything different.”

“For him, it wasn’t all that different. He had a habit of stressing over everything and working himself to exhaustion. We take turns looking after one another and he’d been doing better I guess. But when someone is that exhausted, they start to have moments where they check out, microsleep I guess, and then they startle back to the present. And they get jumpy. Honestly, I was worried about him.”

“You were?”

“Yeah, but I always am, so… that wasn’t new.”

“Where were you at the station when this incident happened?”

Morgan sat back in his seat. “Maybe eight, ten feet away. Too damn far. We had been walking through the station together and an officer called me over, and I stopped.” He tipped his head back and rubbed his head. “I keep thinking that had I called out and stopped him, grabbed his arm or something, maybe I could have stopped this. Other times I wonder what would have happened if I’d just kept walking, would he have questioned what he was seeing and hearing if I wasn’t reacting?”

“You couldn’t have predicted any of this, Agent Morgan.”

“Maybe those four cops would be alive if I’d been closer.”

“Agent…”

“Look, you probably think I’m crazy, but I’m sure I could’ve done something.”

“You were the closest of your team to him, did he say anything?”

“When the four shots came, my first instinct was to duck and start looking for everyone else.”

“Only four shots?”

“He only needed four.”

“True.”

“Once he had the hostage, I tried talking to him, but he didn’t seem to click it was me. He kept asking the cop why he killed them. He said the evidence was irrefutable and it was obvious he was guilty. He kept asking why he did it.”

“Killed who?”

Morgan shrugged. “I have no idea. None of it made sense. The names of the people he was saying died, I’ve never heard those names before, but clearly he thought they were someone important.”

She watched him stare at the glossy tabletop a moment. “Agent?” His eyes came up to meet hers. “I am very sorry you’ve had to go through this.”

He nodded slowly. “Who else do you have to talk with?”

“I have just one more, then I can write up my findings and submit them into official record.”

“And then he never sees the light of day again.”

“Honestly? After reviewing the other interviews from the cops at the station as well as the rest of your team, I am really hoping that’s not the case and… I think I’ll be recommending inpatient help instead of jail time. Even without interviewing him, I think his doctors will agree that it’s the best choice. No one I’ve talked to has given any indication that anything in his life would have precipitated this.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. I don’t know if a judge will listen to you, but…thank you.”

“Sure.”


	6. Reid

_Interview Date: October 31, 2011_  
Interview Location: Physician Consultation Room, Eighth Floor, Unit B  
Interviewer: Deborah Ray, Special Investigator

_Transcription of Interview #1 with Supervisory Special Agent Spencer Reid_

“Agent Reid, could you please take a seat?” Deborah waited, but got no response. “Agent… Could you please give me your account of the incident for the record?” He didn’t even seem to blink. “Agent?”

= = =

_ Notes from interview _

“Agent Reid did not speak at all during our time together. I was concerned about his state of mind, but when I tried to ask leading questions, there was one instance where he did appear to cry. It is my opinion that he is simply too emotional at this juncture to be able to recount his version of events and perhaps it is best if he is left in the capable hands of medical professionals. His version is not necessary, I feel, to make an informed decision about this case.

“After Agent Reid left the room, I did place a call to Agent Rossi, he suggested Agent Reid is just too close to be able to process it. He advised I do my research. That research so far has yielded knowledge that Agent Reid’s mother, presumably his only living relative for many years, is institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia. I also unearthed some entirely subjective information that would lead me to be curious as to the nature of the relationship between Agents Reid and Hotchner.

“I advise against attempting to ask any of the team about any such relationship. As advised at the outset, the entire group is extremely close, almost unnaturally so for a work group, but they have ultimately been cooperative and helpful, each in their own limited way. They are all understandably distraught and worried, I believe Agent Prentiss’ suggestion of a gentle hand and plenty of therapy all around is a very reasonable one. I do not believe any of them could have prevented this unfortunate event from occurring.”


	7. Hotchner

_Interview Date: January 3, 2012_  
Interview Location: Office of Doctor Juliet Mason  
Interviewer: Deborah Ray, Special Investigator

_Transcription of Interview #3 with Doctor Mason_

“Doctor Mason, the last time we’d spoke, you had said your patient was starting to remember some of that day, but at the time, you were hesitant to share anything. Since you called this meeting today, can I assume something has changed in the intervening months?”

“It took time to get Agent Hotchner’s medication right to a point where he was able to function without the hallucinations taking over. Once we achieved that, with the help of his guardians, he reached an equilibrium where he could start narrating the months leading up to the shooting.”

“Months?”

“At least.”

“Can you give us details?”

“Agent Hotchner was able to go into great detail about his wife and son, very vivid memories. He talked about how they met, the struggles they faced, his change of career path, and so on. He described his son so explicitly that a good sketch artist could actually make a portrait, of the boy as an infant and then older. The human mind is quite fascinating sometimes in its ability to do things like that.” The doctor shifted in her seat. “Agent Hotchner then went into graphic detail about how his wife and son were murdered, how the man responsible had stalked him and his family and had tried to kill them all, but he survived.

“He couldn’t explain how, then, the scars no longer appeared on his body. He said the team helped him work the case, helped him try, and fail, to catch the man. They told him the day of the incident that that cop was the one who’d killed his wife and son and that the other cops had hidden evidence to prove that.”

Deborah was at a loss for words. “I wasn’t aware he’d ever been married.”

“He hasn’t. Haley and Jack, that’s what he says their names were, are entirely made up. As is his former career as a lawyer. From what I can gather doing my own investigation, Agent Hotchner suffered extreme abuse at the hands of his parents from a very young age, some of the incidents pushing him almost to the brink of death. A neighbor found him one night dumped in the back corner of the family’s yard in the cold, sparsely dressed and bleeding badly. He was seventeen then but looked barely over fourteen based on his size.

The foster family that took him in from there had a younger daughter, Jessica. The best we can guess is that he was perhaps infatuated with her due to her kindness but because of her age, he fabricated an older version, a sister essentially, that was more appropriate.”

“So, he’s been hallucinating for all these years?”

“I think he has coped with extreme stress by dissociating, and over the years, those dissociative moments have taken in outside events around him and slowly built upon themselves. He is well and truly distraught over the loss of Haley and Jack, just as if they were real.”

“Could this have possibly been caught on a psychological evaluation?”

“You mean could the FBI have seen this coming? I’m honestly not sure. Top profilers never caught on, maybe it’s because the hallucinations often were of them, so it wasn’t obvious. I really can’t say.”

Deborah nodded and put her pen down.

“Honestly, Miss Ray, if the FBI is doing this because they are worried about their responsibility in this matter, I don’t see how they could have known. Agent Hotchner is a good man, he has dedicated his adult life to a very difficult career that he feels very passionate about. The world would be a worse place if he’d never been an agent. His guardians have secured good counsel and the amount of remorse he has shown, namely when he believes himself to be alone and in private, is overwhelming.” Doctor Mason picked up her phone when it vibrated on the desk. “I’m sorry, I have a patient I need to see. If you were still wanting to see Agent Hotchner, he is in the day room with his guardians, they insist on being present but allowing you to speak with him.” The doctor stood. “Have you met Agent Hotchner yet?”

“No, I’ve not had the chance.”

“This way.”

Deborah followed the doctor down the hall and into the large open day room, empty now save for three men, two of which she’d met in the past. “Agents.” She offered her hand and shook Rossi’s and Reid’s. “It’s good to see you again.”

Dave turned, allowing Aaron to come into view. “Aaron? This is Deborah Ray, the FBI investigator who looked into the incident.”

Slowly, almost hesitantly, the man sitting on the couch looked up at her. Deborah had seen photos in the file of Agent Hotchner, had dug up footage of him. The man before her barely resembled that man, however. “Agent.” She offered her hand to him. He looked meek and shy, shoulders curled in and eyes down.

“It’s good to meet you.” He softly greeted, shaking her hand. “I’ll answer as many of your questions as I can.”


End file.
